Anti-salmon farming groups 'want to silence workers' voices in Canada'

Anti-salmon farming groups in Canada are aiming to “ostracise” people who depend on aquaculture, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance chair Joel Richardson has claimed.

Richardson, who is communications chief for New Brunswick-based seafood heavyweight Cooke Aquaculture, made the accusation in a recent speech to fish farmers and suppliers in British Columbia.

“The adage that ‘a lie will go around the world while the truth is putting its boots on’ is one that rings true for aquaculture. We’re up against well-funded, connected organisations, many of which are backed by foreign sources with competing interests.

“They are building campaigns meant to sow confusion and fear and are building business and fundraising models designed to undermine and ostracise the very people whose livelihoods depend on aquaculture,” Richardson told the annual general meeting of the BC Salmon Farmers Association in Campbell River, Vancouver Island.

Revoke charitable status

He said ENGOs (environmental non-governmental organisations) who conduct these activities and spread false information putting domestic food security and jobs at risk should have their charitable or not-for-profit status revoked, and that the fish farming sector should call out misinformation.

“The most effective and powerful opposition to these false narratives is the voice of aquaculture workers, which is backed by research by credible scientists,” said Richardson.

Richardson’s claim that fish farm workers are being ostracised echoes that made three years ago by Professor Russel Griggs about the situation in Scotland. Griggs, who had been commissioned by the Scottish Government to write an independent report on salmon farming regulation, told MSPs: “It’s quite clear from the work I did on this that the ‘anti’ voice in some places is very well funded, it’s very well resourced, which perhaps the local voice isn’t.”

Similar claims have been made in Chile, where salmon farming is opposed by well-funded ENGOs based in other countries such as the United States.

Wild salmon

In his speech to BC salmon farmers, Richardson stressed that aquaculture is not to blame for wild salmon declines, which he said was caused by factors ranging from ever changing weather and habitat destruction to overfishing, pollution, predation, and – in Atlantic Canada - hundreds of dams built between the 1920s and 1940s that resulted in an upstream habitat loss of thousands of kilometres of stream length for spawning.

“These are the real culprits. It is unscientific and unfair to pin the blame on a sector that is committed to co-existence, stewardship, and collaboration.” 

Richardson called for decisions on fish farm licensing in BC to be returned to the provincial government instead of the federal government which has decreed that open-net salmon farming must end in the province by mid-2029.

“Define and treat the BC sector as a farming sector and therefore make the province, local communities and BC Indigenous communities the authoritative voices to make decisions and drive collaboration,” said Richardson.

Fact over fiction

“All we are asking of our elected officials is that they put fact over fiction, treat our industry fairly, and allow us the freedom to farm responsibility.

“That’s the Canadian thing to do.

“To everyone who is standing up here in Campbell River and across rural British Columbia - and across the country - thank you. Stay strong. Keep fighting. The facts are on our side. So are the communities. And so is the future.”

A fuller version of Richardson’s speech can be read here.